


The King's Pawn

by beautyasleep



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Slow Romance, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 09:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24967261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautyasleep/pseuds/beautyasleep
Summary: When your father gambles away your family's home and business, you feel a little screwed. When the person doing the screwing happens to be your arrogant classmate, you wonder how creative you'll have to get to set everything right. [Seto Kaiba x Reader]
Relationships: Kaiba Seto/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	The King's Pawn

**Author's Note:**

> I've only watched the English anime, so all names are anglicized. 
> 
> “When mortality is the equation, we are but pawns in a game.” - Dianna Hardy

In the metropolitan downtown of Domino City, duelists never rest. Rare cards sell for the same amount as a new cellphone, snatching savings until the stock dwindles and demands sky-rocket. Card trading stole the revenue on the black market, involving a large range of ages, from elementary school kids to struggling single parents. Those working in any field, from the grocery clerks to the accountants tucked away in skyscrapers—everyone was sucked in by the latest phenomena.

Everyone, pointedly, except for you.

“How was school today?” your father chimes from the storage closet. Your mother sweeps at your feet with the sharp blades of her broom, shooing you out of the entryway. You nearly trip on your thigh-high boots, tangled with a pair of your mother’s sandals.

“Uh, it was fine!” you holler back. You step over the rest of the misshapen pile. “My geography test was pretty solid. I think everyone did okay on that, though.”

“It’s important!” your mother reminds you. It isn’t worth it to answer back with a sully “I know”, so you move into the kitchen and toss your bag on the counter.

“Any business today?” you ask as you rummage through the cupboards, searching for canned soup. Yelling between walls is what generally serves as a cpnversation between the three of you, especially when the only time you share a room together is when you’re working in the store or eating dinner on a holiday.

Even from the kitchen, you hear your father’s soft sigh, like a muffler gasping on exhaust. “It’s okay,” he says, “I’d like it to get better over the next few weeks. I’d like us to start selling those new card games, but I’d hate to dishonour Mr. Mouto as a competitor.”

You shake your head. “Dad, I really doubt he’ll care. Practically everyone’s buying them. At least it could draw attention—every other shop has a card rack right now.”

“Honey,” your mother interrupts, “would you mind turning on the news?”

You abandon your search for food and head for the living room. Despite your mother’s efforts, your dad has the place nearly dismantled. Stacks of magazines linger between the saggy, cushioned chairs, and bursting boxes of knickknacks teeter dangerously beside the wall. The photos of you and your family rest on an odd angle, and after you reach the remote, flicking on the television, you step over the rug to fix them.

“—another astonishing defeat! You heard it here first, folks: Seto Kaiba has annihilated the French dynamite Napoleon! When it comes to skill, one could even say… he draws a little short.”

The stupid pun earns a snort from you, but you turn to catch sight of the named victor. Unlike the solemn stare he wears to school, Kaiba boasts a proud smirk and the crowd roars for it. His arms guard his chest like idling snakes, but the great ruler of the game looks at peace. You’re surprised to see him dressed in his school uniform, but it creates an air of youthfulness around him. It dawns on you that the unfamiliar Napoleon probably mistook his teenage ambiance as spoiled amateurism. 

“Oh, that darn game’s on again!” your mother says, dragging you from your mind. You turn to find her standing at the entrance to the room, the broom no longer in her clutch. “Ever since this game came out, it’s all the reporters seem to talk about. And this one—“ she indicates your classmate before the camera spans out across the crowds “—is always on it, too. Isn’t it terrible that such a young CEO would be so warped by games?”

“I’m not sure,” you shrug. You doubt you’ll ever own a company in your life, even if business does pick up. You haven’t even figured out why the casted prodigy bothers showing up to school yet, considering his absences earn as much gossip as the rare days he makes an appearance.

The camera trains to his face again, and you stare into his blue eyes, ignited by the lights and magnificence of first place. He looks almost royal, bored by the attention and the swarming hands, reaching out to him and chanting his name.

“Hm,” your mother sighs behind you. “I hope they return to real news soon.”

You return to the kitchen behind her. Ten minutes later, the news report starts.

-|-

The following day at school, Seto Kaiba’s world title earns the top seat for gossip. You’re barely in ear-shot of your friends as you enter the classroom, but you can see by the anguished look on Joey’s face that it isn’t a victory he’s celebrating. Tristan stands behind him, shouldering him like a biding guard dog, while Yugi sits across the desk, preparing the tabletop for a new game. Tea, the last of your group, jumps as you wrap your arms around her waist and tuck her into your side.

“ _Hmm_ , you smell good,” you say.

“Hello to you, too, ______,” Tea laughs. You haven’t hung around them for long, but you’ve known Tea since elementary school. She curls a finger through her short, brown hair, plaited just an inch above her shoulders.

“It’s garbage!” Joey yells over the two of you. “I’m sick of hearing about dat Kaiba nerd. Big fucking deal, he got a company from his daddy. I got a jacket from my old man—you don’t hear me braggin’ about it.”

“Not the same things,” Tristan points out.

Yugi looks up from shuffling his deck. “It’s pretty impressive,” he says earnestly, and you see everyone’s expression soften. The Yugi Effect erases the tension set by their absent classmate, and a moment later, Joey moves on to something else.

“Did anyone else study for trig?” he asks. You feel Tea’s nod against your shoulder and sigh.

“No,” you confess.

Everyone turns to you. “The new ScReW CD came out. That stole away most of my night,” you say. You fail to mention that you spent six hours stapling flyers around the district, advertising the shop's weekend sale. 

Joey laughs. “Right on! We can have detention together again!”

“You two need to make a better effort,” Tea scolds. She shrieks moments later when you pinch her side.

“School’s not a thing for me!” you say brightly, pulling away to wrap around Yugi’s vacant side. He watches you as you plant yourself on a vacant desk. “I’m a working woman, through and through."

Joey’s blond brow arches. “Yeah? And here I thought you just sucked at math!”

The group chuckles, quietening down as you chant over them. “Hey! I do my parent’s taxes every year. I’m good at reasonable math, but no idiot on the street gives a damn about physics or trig.”

“Better watch which streets you’re on,” the blond yankee teases.

You watch Yugi set his deck down, reaching for Joey’s assembly—without knowing a thing about the game, you’re already sure he’s messed it up.

“Uh huh. Hurry up and lose to Yugi so Tea and I can grab a coffee.”

-|-

After another brutal defeat at Yugi’s hands, you and Tea head for the cafeteria, your little Sailor Scout coin purse jingling lightly between your catch and throws.

“I’ll give him credit: Joey’s…at least understanding it better,” Tea says.

You snort. The courtyard is packed with pockets of students, their blue and pink uniforms blending into a purple hue. You nod to a few classmates as you pass. “That was terrible credit,” you say, shrugging away from a bulging backpack. “I don’t know. It’s okay to watch every now and then, but I’d still rather play a real sport.”

“There’s a lot of strategy behind it. You might enjoy it more than you think,” Tea urges.

“Maybe,” you agree for her sake. The line-up at the coffee stand consists of two students, so you jog the rest of the way before it fills up. Once a chilled chai tea sits in your hand, you return to her side.

“I’m thinking of looking for another job,” you admit while she takes a sip from your drink. She’s half-way through swallowing it, when her shout is massacred by her trembling coughs. You rub her back until she calms down.

“Thanks!” she wheezes between gulps of airs. “Gosh. Really, ______? You barely have enough time as it is.”

“I know,” you say. “But the shop isn’t so good right now. I was thinking I could try… like, modelling or something.”

“Modelling?”

“Or something,” you say, trying to cast the defensive edge out of your tone. “It’d be easy pay, right? Find a photographer who wants to make it big and let him use me to further both of our gains.”

“It sounds like a slippery slope,” she warns. Tea’s heart could swallow the world; despite her persistent badgering, she’s never empty of affection or genuine care. The first time you wound up on her doorstep, puking into her mother’s planted pots, she covered for you and took you into her room so you could sleep it off. When you woke up in the morning, sober, she had a cloth soaking up the sweat stained to your forehead, and two, tiny, blue pills of Tylenol beside an unopened bottle of water.

From the look on her face, you gather she’s reliving the same memory. “I’ll behave,” you say, but you’re not sure whether there’s truth in those words. Tea washes down her remaining coughs with another swallow of chai tea, before your hands gingerly swipe it away.

-|-

On the tusk of Sunset Avenue, three blocks away from your family’s shop and home, you spot a flyer promoting a new dueling tournament. The baby blue paper snips at your heels, its corners curling from the violent passage of wind. You stomp on it with your leather loafer, perhaps too aggressively because a high-pitched chuckle gathers your attention.

“You don’t need to dislike it _that_ much.”

A woman sporting a purple corset and wild blond curls approaches you. You’re envious of her heels and fishnets, wishing the uniform policy was a little more lenient at your school. Your own pink top and blue skirt would make any polished lady cringe, but in Mai’s direct view, you’re sure it’ll be scathing.

“They need to learn to tape these properly,” you say absently.

Mai laughs and collects a few strands of her hair between her fingers. You watch as the hair billows in the wind. “It’s been a while. ______, right?”

“Yep,” you say. “Still looking like you stepped out of a boutique, Mai.”

“It’s important to care for your appearance,” she says. You don’t disagree, so you smile. Her returning grin is like a bite.

“But this…” You watch her eyes sweep over you. “I’m a little disappointed to see.”

Despite yourself, you feel a little self-conscious. “It’s just a uniform,” you try to brush off. “I’m the best looking one in it.”

“That doesn’t say much for the rest of your girlfriends.”

It’s a steep decline on the road to shit-talking, and you’d hate to let her trap you in a corner. “Well, it was nice seeing you, Mai. Maybe I’ll catch you at the club again?”

“Hardly,” she dismisses. “Decades is done. If you happen to take a walk out of that drastic medley, maybe you’ll find me again.”

Typical Mai keeping the location of the latest rave all to herself. But you can't help but admire her cool confidence, regardless of her haughty attitude. The first time you met her, you were on your knees over a toilet, debating between throwing up and drowning in the murky bar water. She collected you off the floor and made you eat little pieces of bread until you got your nausea under control. Then, when you could stumble around on your legs again, she took you on a wild ride through downtown in the back of a stolen limousine.

Mai’s grin etches into her face like a foreign feature, too manufactured to wear kindness. You wonder if, like Tea only hours ago, she’s recalling your past adventures together.

But she waves you off as you step around her; it’s odd seeing Mai today, of all days. You don’t know much about her, except that she’s glamorous and always surrounded by men to improve that luxury. It strikes you as odd that she’d be hanging out in this area, though; despite the access to downtown, your neighbourhood boasts far from abundance and luxury. The apartment buildings maintain a decent paint-job, but you know the inside halls wilt from mold and neglect. Most of the laundry wires sport one or two outfits, every day, because the folks here can’t afford much more. The city’s been trying to evacuate the area for years now, regarding it as nothing but a slum.

You never really thought about it growing up; not until someone at school brought it your attention.

_“Where do you live?”_

_It was such a harmless question, like asking what your parents do for a living. Aya fashioned a ribbon around her wrist, absently waiting for your reply while the teacher’s back was turned._

_“In the Blue Forest block,” you said._

_The petite girl snickered into her sleeve. “Really? And here I thought that bad smell was coming from Wheeler.”_

_“Oi!” Joey shouted over you, but you were already fighting the heat surging up your neck and settling on your cheeks. There were a few choice words you could’ve used to defend yourself, but winning back Aya’s attention wasn’t worth it._

Kids around you had laughed and eventually forgotten about it. The incident took place over four years ago, but still trespassed into your head whenever you were caught off guard along the walk home. Maybe people here had to scrape harder for their buck; and yeah, Blue Forest Block had a higher concentration of homeless folk, but they didn’t hurt anybody. Everyone knew each other, so even if they couldn’t afford to spend much and help each other out, there was enough respect to avoid big-time burglaries.

You felt safer on these streets than you did in the ritzy suburbs.

When you arrive home, your mood has descended into your gut, swathe with gloom and resentment. You have your shoes off and your bag on the kitchen counter before you realize you haven’t seen nor heard your parents—it’s a little strange, considering the decline in business. You find a granola bar and make your way to the conjoining door that links your home to the shop.

Sure enough, your parents are behind the counter, their heads tucked together examining something on the counter buried from your line of vision. “Hey,” you call to them, and your mother’s head rises.

“Oh, honey,” she says, and she looks near white.

“Mom.”

You run the rest of the way. Maybe your thoughts were too hopeful—locals might be safe, but businesses were never guaranteed protection in a low-income neighbourhood. You’ve been robbed in the past, when your parents first opened shop, and with dad’s recent habits, maybe it was about to start again.

As you wrap around her side, you notice your father clutching something between his thin, wrinkled fingers. It looks like another flyer, this time sporting a sickly yellow wash. His hand blocks most of the written content, but you reach for the corner, gently clasping it in your hand. Your father releases it to your tugs.

It’s not a flyer. The header roisters the name Kaiba Corp, complete with logo and contact information. You skim across the formal lettering until you find the source of their dismay, and that ugly feeling swimming in your gut drops all the way down to your toes.

“They can’t do that,” you say. You hardly note your trembling hand as you crinkle the edge of the paper. It’s dated from today, and the words read like dry, pointed malice. “That isn’t legal!”

“We have ninety days to vacate,” your dad says brightly, but his voice has never sounded coarser. You stare at him over the paper, wondering how he can stand against his trembling. “It’s very nice of them to give us warning,” he whispers.

“Nice?” you scoff. “This is absolute bullshit!”

“Do not use that language—“

“No,” you say quickly. You slam the eviction notice on the counter and the store echoes the resounding bang. “We own this property. All of our savings are invested here. They can’t just take it without at least inquiring—“

In the middle of your rant, your mother bows her head and your father’s smile diminishes. You swallow, pausing from any further rhetoric.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Your mother wraps her arms around your shoulders, burying her face in the side of your arm. She’s too tiny to reach any higher, but your arms are too stiff to console her. Over her head, your father watches her, his eyes refusing to lift and face you.

“I lost the deed a month ago,” he admits. Your throat hurts to swallow. “I lost it during one of the plays. Kemo—he’s a good guy. Very good. Knows this neighbourhood well. He was gonna let us stay, let me work off the money to buy it back, but… it seems he’s sold it to his boss.”

You don’t ask who his boss is. You know that much already.

Your mother squeezes you closer, but you shrug off her attempts.

“Okay,” you say.

“ ______, honey, we are so—“

“No, mom,” you say. “He’s sorry. As he should be. The two of you can figure this out. I gotta go.”

You hate the look of shame washing across your father’s face, but it hurts even more to open your mouth. Whatever courage you had, whatever sympathy you stored up over the past few months has turned your will to iron. You dart around the counter, dashing past the racks until you’re out on the street.

You run against the sweeping wind, ignoring it as it ruffles your uniform into ragged wrinkles; you run until your calves cramp, and then you run further. It’s ten blocks away, a noticeable beacon in the sky, and as you pant outside of its grand doors, Kaiba Corp renders you speechless.

A few passerbys gawk at you, but you gather a few more breaths before venturing inside. Exotic potted plants sandwich the entryway, creating a fanning effect as you enter. Off to the side, plush leather furniture circles a crystal-carved coffee table offering an assortment of Belgium chocolates. The window walls are clear of streaks, opening the room to the hurrying street where just moments ago, you could only see your reflection. A pretty, smiling receptionist waits behind the front desk, clear of any skirmishes or paper. She maintains her professional smile, despite your presumably haggard appearance. 

“I need to see Seto Kaiba. Now...please.”

“Do you have an appointment?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Sure I do,” you say. “My fist has a very pressing matter with his face. You can tell him it’s urgent.”

Her smile slips away. “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m going to have to ask you—“

The elevator in the centre of the room dings, and before she can finish her attempt to discharge you, you’re marching towards the parting door. You’re one of the tallest girls in school, but that doesn’t hold a match to Seto’s stature. He easily dwarfs your frame, but it’s the first time since you’ve known him that you’ve tried to measure. Rage licks your baited words, curling behind your mouth like prisoners reaching out of their cells. Kaiba’s focus trains on a thin tablet clutched carefully in his hand, and your pace flags the notice of his two bodyguards before he’s even assessed your presence.

“You!” you shout. He takes his time lifting his head, as though your outburst blends with the soft music emitting from the speakers tucked into the corners. “You arrogant, monopolizing, _egotistical_ son of a bi—“

One of the bodyguards cuts in front of you, blocking your view of the young CEO. You recognize the massive man immediately; it’s Kemo, the local gambler your father often goes to. The one he bid your entire life to, and lost.

“YOU’RE EVEN WORSE!” you rage, jutting your finger in his face. Kemo takes your wrist and holds it above your head; his grip is threatening, as though he’s ready to snap it in two, given the word.

“Sorry, Mr. Kaiba,” he says curtly. “It’s only one of the pests still holding up your expansion project. I’ll see her out.”

He lifts your lithe form without any effort, easily tossing you over his shoulder, but your gaze reaches Kaiba once more. He’s studying you with an uncaring expression, and you’ve never hated anyone more.

“If I were you, I’d drop out of school!” you warn him. Your fingers curl into fists, slamming into Kemo’s back with every word. “I’m serious! If I see you in the hallway, these two won’t be there to protect you from the pounding you earned a long time ago! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG—”

“Shut up,” Kemo orders, and yelps when you retaliate with an elbow to the back of his head.

Kaiba doesn’t say a word, and a moment later, Kemo tosses you onto the sidewalk, nearly sending you into bustling traffic until your skid halts you at the edge. Several pedestrians gawk at you, and you can feel that your left thigh is cut up from the pavement.

“Come here again, and I’ll take you as payment for the rest of your father’s debts,” he warns. He straightens his tie which scrunched beneath your struggling legs. The malice in his voice makes you shiver.

You close your legs together as he walks back inside. Nobody moves to help you, and for that, you’re thankful. The cool air settling from the night atmosphere works to calm your anger, and soon, you have enough sense to peel yourself off the walk. You glance down at your side, your thigh streaking thick, red fingers into a criss-cross pattern. It would almost look beautiful, if it weren’t your blood.


End file.
